Phasing Out
by DasCheesenborgir
Summary: The Empire marches ever onward- even those in its service can't keep up forever.


**I'm kinda scared n nervous about actually putting this up. Largely because as much as I loved Star Wars as a kid, I've reeeeaally done a crappy job of keeping up with it in recent times; which wouldn't be so much of an issue if the little bits of interest I still have in it are buried a little deeper in the convoluted clusterfuck known as 'Extended Universe'.**

… **probably doesn't help either that this particular subject concerns something pretty obscure in and of itself in that haystack (of poison-laden needles). I've actually had this goddamn plot bunny hopping around for a long time now, it surfaced back when I learned of a certain something called 'Crusader: No Remorse' and decided to read a little into the enigmatic Dark Trooper class that I only knew of from the Battlefront games.**

 **So, I dunno. Decided to take a gamble and go for it anyways, at the very least maybe do an open-ended intro if I ever want to return to this idea. I'm doing my best to avoid taking logical leaps with the limited info I've pulled from Wookieepedia and thus obscuring some of the technical details with purple prose, but one thing that unfortunately rather boggles me is what two-letter prefix is supposed to be used in designating Phase 0 Troopers :/**

 **In any case, it'd probably be a good idea to cut this off here before this damn author's note becomes longer than this sorry excuse for an intro chapter LOL**

 **0-0-0**

Sickly pale skin, shrivelled up in wrinkled folds of mutilated flesh grafted onto the cold and inflexible tubes of chrome, sat limply in the corner of the unoccupied armory. A singular, harsh light illuminated the figure's form in scathing white, highlighting, in particular, the pathetic grey wisps of hair that clung to his bared scalp.

Empty brown eyes that now flared with only a flicker of desperation glared back at a stoic grey mask of sculpted obedience, searching the pair of black teardrop eyepieces that returned his gaze with a blank disregard. A rasp, thick and laden with asthmatic helplessness escaped his metal jaws and tried to pierce the dark plastoid shell that encased Unit 279.

 _"Machine…human…"_

Those were the only words that Unit 279 could discern from the series of lowly wails that left the pitiful conglomeration of aged organic matter and state-of-the-art machinery. He knew the sound pattern of it fairly well, had heard it many times before. It was indeed the voice of Unit 145, distinguished veteran clone trooper; and 279's commanding officer for the majority of their so-far brief service in the newly designated 'Imperial' Army. A voice that, for once, was not amplified and mutilated into something approaching a discernable voice by some form of artificial modulator.

Unit 145 sat upon the cold metal grating of the floor, bared under the grotesque light of scrutiny. The layers of armor that had hidden his crippled skeleton of a figure had been forcibly peeled away from his warped flesh, and strewn around him in the wake of what one could only assume was an incensed wave of sudden hysteria.

No, not merely presumably. It was quite certain, really.

279 continued to stand in voluntary silence, electrical signals bridging together as his black-lensed eyes took in the scene.

' _Human.'_

Wracking coughs shook 145's frail frame and broke the sterile quiet that hung in the armory, a frenzied bout of writhing shudders travelling down the entirety of his shrivelled figure. His synthetic jaw clamped shut, and his eyes ignited with a dangerous new fire as he diverted his gaze away from 279; perhaps realizing, at last, the futility of the foolish argument he had attempted to impart upon the ever-armored figure for so long now.

Gangly metal fingers grasped for something else on the floor- black, and stocky, a distinctively shaped rifle that had come to be associated with the unnerving armored visage of the average Dark Trooper.

Unit 279 raised his own weapon in response, his own hands, clad in obscuring black matte and plates of plastoid, levelling the barrel of the blast cannon at 145's chest with a smooth and instinctual efficiency.

The gesture imparted his message and understanding of the situation clearly enough, for certain. 145 froze in his attempt to reach for his weapon as expected; at first, even apparently startled enough to spare a wide-eyed glance at the silhouette of his subordinate holding him at gunpoint.

That disbelief quickly warped into some sort of callous amusement, his chest inflating, the upper part of his mouth, which yet remained organic, curling up into an awkward attempt at a smile as his lower jaw, wrought from rigid alloy, did not comply. Brittle teeth came into the light as his drained lip rose, and he began to heave and wheeze with a withering laughter.

279 hesitated for a brief moment, 145's disregard for his own well-being prompting the Dark Trooper to ponder exactly what the point of threatening a unit attempting suicide with lethal force was.

 _"What's… the matter? Can't even let a traitor die on his own terms?"_

 _Traitor._ That was what 145 was- shying from his duty, from service.

Another string of coughs left 145's tattered throat, his brown eyes, the only recognizable thing left of his cloned flesh breaking away in the shuddering violence of his respiratory spasms.

It was… utterly pathetic. For a clone, a tank-bred soldier amongst an increasingly large number of mere _regulars,_ to die in such a manner, to throw everything away on such a frivolous whim-

 _More machine than man._

The deflated and muted voice that came to him from memory gave him momentary pause in his previous conviction to… what? Execute 145?

Circuits and synapses pulsed with neural signals, and he ceased that line of irrelevant thought. For the first time in the confrontation, he spoke, speakers in the smooth shell of his helm projecting his voice out in a filtered tone that mirrored the unmoving expression of blankness etched onto its faceplate.

"Enough of this. Replace your armor and return to the troop bay."

His words fell on deaf ears. Globs of crimson began to splatter onto the grated floor with 145's incensed mixture of coughing and cackling, the stunted clone's brittle organic thighs quivering with exertion; he was trying to stand up.

279 stood, pivoting his weapon to keep it trained upon the writhing lump of flesh and metal. His finger, sheathed in a smooth layer of black, remained still on the trigger. He said nothing, knew that anything he said, anything he did, would not change anything.

A final wheeze, possibly some words of wisdom directed at him filled the armory air with a flaccid expulsion of fleeting life. The flat smackof 145's deprived corpse against the ground reverberated louder than his last words.

279 was left standing in an unfeeling limbo of listlessness for the moments that followed, the echoes of his commander's death still reverberating within the confines of his helm. There wasn't much left to do now except report the incident of course, give his assurances that the truth of it wouldn't be exposed past the lackluster attempts at covering it up, and then awaiting deployment to some unfortunate planet or ship which housed the 'infiltrator that killed Unit 145'.

Or perhaps the blame would even fall upon him. One of the few remaining subjects in dying project that could easily be cast aside himself; muted matte grey, a uniform exoskeleton that stood as cold as the walls around him in this corner of a vacant armory.

 **0-0-0**

 **So, yeah, I dunno, I kinda lost track of where I was going with this towards the end- I think for the sake of context I'll at** _ **least**_ **have to continue this (I highly doubt it'll work as a standalone) to provide a little… closure, of sorts. Or at least actually get to the bit where mentioning Crusader in the opening note would actually make a modicum of sense hahaha.**


End file.
